


Romaine Calm

by magnusbicon (patrickbrewer)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, Fluff and Humor, Grocery Shopping, Grocery Store, Introspection, M/M, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 21:07:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19093162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrickbrewer/pseuds/magnusbicon
Summary: It happens every time.The Battle of the Groceries.He goes to the store with a simple list and returns home with 50 bags and a diminished bank account. Somehow when strangers started invading his head he never imagined this would be one of his main issues, but here he is.





	Romaine Calm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iwillstayalive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillstayalive/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Carla! I hope you have the most amazing day full of happiness and love! It's what you deserve! 💜
> 
> (Also yes, I am horrible at titles so I went with another pun. I hate myself, too.)

Clouds are settled low in the sky when Alec arrives at the supermarket, dark and ominous as morning shifts into afternoon. It’s supposed to rain sometime within the next couple hours, and he’s hoping he’ll get this over with before it starts. The last thing he needs is to be grumpy  _ and _ soaked. 

He doesn’t know who he’s kidding. 

The parking lot isn’t too crowded, but that doesn’t ease his mind in the least. He knows exactly what’s coming, and he feels someone else’s amusement curl in his chest at the thought just before a strong voice speaks from the passenger seat. 

“Calm down, Lightwood. You’re so dramatic.” 

He purposely ignores the thick black curls he sees in his peripheral vision and yanks his keys out of the ignition (dramatically, of course). A cool breeze brushes his skin as he strides toward the entrance, determined and dreadful. The air is thick with anticipation for the coming storm, and a grin that is not his own stretches across his face. 

“I love storms,” Clary sighs, her hair bouncing with her steps as she suddenly appears beside Alec. “They make me want to paint.”

It’s probably the 10 billionth time Alec has heard her say that, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he makes sure she feels his internal eye roll. She scrunches her nose in retaliation as they reach the carts, disappearing as Alec pulls violently at the first one he sees. 

He doesn’t notice the squeaky wheel until he’s at least ten steps into the store, and it’s too late to go back now. Just add that to the list of noises he doesn’t want to endure over the next hour. 

“If any of you try shit today, I will make all of you smash eggs on your heads and take blockers for the rest of my life so you can’t get revenge,” he mutters under his breath as he approaches the vegetables. It’s an empty threat and they all know it, but he wants it to hang in the air anyway. He’s been known to scare people unintentionally in the past, and  this is very, very purposeful. 

“If you’re really so worried about it, why didn’t you take a blocker before you came?” Jace asks, arms crossed and eyebrow raised in that smug way of his that makes Alec want to throw himself down a well. 

He has a point, not that Alec will ever admit it out loud. (He makes a mental note for next time).

“He secretly loves it when we meddle,” Magnus teases, his fingers brushing against Alec’s arm as he strolls by. “We make things interesting.” 

Alec pauses, pretending to inspect a bag of lettuce as he visits Magnus. The entire cluster is there already, lounging around the various chairs in the loft– except for Raphael and Luke, who are in the kitchen arguing over the quality of the pasta Magnus ordered for dinner last night. 

“ _ You _ make things interesting,” Alec corrects, shooting Simon a glare when he waves cheerily. “The rest of them are demons.”

Six offended “ _ Hey _ ”s echo in his head as he focuses back in on the store.

He puts the lettuce back on the shelf and continues on, bagging up some apples and oranges. Sometimes Max stays at his place and Alec has to pack him lunch, and unlike Isabelle, he refuses to constantly give him tastykakes. Just because he has a weakness for the butterscotch krimpets doesn’t mean he can let his little brother be unhealthy. 

“That chocolate cake looks so good,” Simon groans, leaning his face against the glass display case of the bakery as Alec goes by. “I need it.” 

“No, you don’t,” Alec says, fighting against the pull he feels in his arms. 

_ And so it begins _ . 

It happens every time.  _ The Battle of the Groceries _ . 

He goes to the store with a simple list and returns home with 50 bags and a diminished bank account. Somehow when strangers started invading his head he never imagined this would be one of his main issues, but here he is.

The first 15 minutes prove to be as infuriating as usual.

“How many hot dogs do you  _ eat _ ?” 

“Oh look, that mayonnaise is on sale!”

“I can’t believe you’re still getting those after I told you I hate the aftertaste!” 

“Come on, Alec. You need to get the fruity pebbles. They’re as gay as you.” 

He wishes he could say he’s good at blocking it out by now, but the truth is that he’s never been known to back down from confrontation, even the most innocent of kinds. 

“Will you all  _ shut up _ ?” he snaps. 

Heads turn and peek around aisles at the sound, and Alec’s teeth click together in frustration when the other customers realize it’s just him and move on with bored expressions on their faces. Saying he has a reputation here would be an understatement. He’s pretty sure they have a picture of him hanging in the employee lounge that’s labeled  _ Crazy Guy _ .

“There he goes again,” Maia laughs, nudging Luke with her elbow as they watch.

“It’s almost too easy.” Raphael shakes his head in mock disappointment. 

Clary reaches for a box of mac and cheese and places it in the cart as quietly as possible as Alec takes deep breaths, earning a panicked glance from Simon as his arm hovers over the cart with a bag of cinnamon raisin bagels. Alec  _ hates _ raisins. 

“Darling,” Magnus soothes, pressing his palm to Alec’s neck and waiting until he meets his eyes, “they’re just having a little fun.”

Alec sighs, shaking his head and pretending his annoyance falls off in droplets with the movement. Part of him hates how easily Magnus can calm him, but most of him is grateful for the balance. It keeps him from traveling to everyone in his cluster and strangling them with his bare hands. 

He still remembers the first time Magnus visited him, how the ghost of his touch had taken his breath away even when it was just in his head. At first Alec thought all of his years in the closet wishing for his prince charming had caught up with him, created a perfect hallucination in his mind. Then he experienced the unyielding hammering of his heart when they finally met in person, the warmth of fingertips across his forehead, on his cheek, hooked around the back of his neck. Things had been different back then, new and intense and unbelievably overwhelming.

Now it’s just family. Home. Familiar in a way he wouldn’t trade for anything, even if the rest of his cluster frequently make him wish for the sweet release of death. 

“Put it down,” Alec hisses at Clary, who shoots Simon an accusatory look and sets the box of mac and cheese back on the shelf. They continue to bicker as Alec moves away, heading toward the freezer aisles and throwing the bagels out of his cart on the way.

“Water bottles,” Magnus reminds him, running a hand down his back before he disappears once more, and Alec stops to grab a pack, smiling gratefully. 

Okay, so maybe having 7 other voices in his head isn’t  _ all  _ bad. It’s nice sometimes, when his fly is down or he keeps messing up his tie knot or his shoe is untied. But then again, Magnus is the only truly helpful one, and Alec is 99% sure that’s only because they actually live together. The rest of them are scattered around New York. They used to be all over the world, but after everything they went through with BPO, they decided they wanted to be close. 

Alec shudders at the memory of Maia locked in a hospital room, moments away from being lobotomized, of Luke strapped down to a table, electrodes stuck to his head that sent energy coursing through his body, of unbearable pain when Magnus was shot in the abdomen just before they finished off their greatest threat. Saying they’ve been to hell and back would be an immense understatement. 

“See?” Simon reasons, shrugging innocently at Alec, “This is nothing compared to that.”

Alec can’t disagree with him, but he can glare and keep moving. 

He manages to resist the temptations from his cluster for a whole two aisles, stocking up on the items that are actually on his list, before he reaches the baking section. It’s always here, when they all set their eyes on a box of brownie mix or confetti icing, that they cause the most chaos. Alec’s shoulders tense as it comes into view and he’s already halfway to turning around and walking away as fast as possible, but it’s too late. 

All at once, his entire cluster appears. Luke rubs his hands together with a maniacal grin on his face as Raphael points at a box of cake mix. Jace and Maia fight over two brands, yelling about their experiences with each. Magnus nods along as Clary describes the cupcakes she decorated for her mom’s birthday one year, and Simon scours the shelves for the mug desserts he’s been rambling about since he saw them during Alec’s last shopping trip. Together their voices are a cacophony of excitement, and Alec knows he has no chance of getting through to them, so he leans back against the cart and waits, unashamedly thinking about the blocker he’s going to take later to have a small shred of peace.

He’ll grab some chicken on his way out and have a nice night in with Magnus. Maybe he can even convince him to take blockers, too. He usually avoids them, especially after everything that went down. He likes being able to reach everyone, to know they’re okay, and Alec gets it. He has siblings. He knows exactly how it feels to worry incessantly, and it’s only increased tenfold since all of these minds infiltrated his own. But he’s learning to be a little bit selfish, to stand up for what he wants and not feel guilty for it. 

It only took a couple decades. 

“I’m proud of you,” Magnus whispers, the ghost of his lips brushing against Alec’s cheek, and Alec looks up to see that everyone else has disappeared. 

“Where’d they go?” Alec asks, eyebrows scrunching together worriedly as he looks around. 

He loves them. He  _ does _ . He just wants to kick them all in the shin, too.

“We can all hear your thoughts, darling,” Magnus says fondly. “They enjoy teasing you, but they’re not evil. They decided to give you space for the rest of the day.”

Alec’s eyes narrow. “Me, or  _ us _ ?” 

Magnus laughs, walking backwards down the aisle and saying, “I’ll see what I can do,” just before he disappears.

And for the first time in Alec isn’t even sure how long, he is completely alone in the supermarket. He walks through the rest of the aisles, grabbing the last of what he needs, and heads to the checkout with significantly more room in the cart than usual. The cashier even raises her eyebrows when she turns to the conveyor belt to scan more items and comes up empty. 

The quiet makes Alec tap his foot restlessly as he inserts his card into the chip reader, and makes his lips press into a line as he moves the bags to his car, and he kind of feels like he’s been transported to some kind of sad, cheesy movie as he drives out of the parking lot and raindrops begin to hit his windshield. 

Maybe he’s not used to being alone anymore. 

He grew up that way, trapped in his mind for fear of being ostracized completely. He had his siblings, but he never leaned on them, never let them  _ see _ him the way his cluster does.  It had been a shock when they all appeared, a huge contrast to how he’d previously lived, but as time went on he found that it was a welcome distraction. He still feels that way, even on their most irritating days. 

“God, you’re  _ pathetic _ ,” Raphael complains, appearing in the passenger seat as Alec nears the loft.

“I think it’s sweet,” Clary says from the back, earning an approving nod from Simon. “He actually misses us when we’re gone.”

Alec parks and immediately slams his head into the steering wheel, hitting the horn and making a few people on the sidewalk jump in surprise. 

“Twenty minutes. You lasted  _ twenty minutes _ .” 

“Relax, Lightwood. We really will leave you alone,” Maia says, rolling her eyes.

“We just want you to admit that you like having us in your head,” Jace continues, leaning between the two front seats. “Out loud.”

Alec lifts his head, sighing. “If I do will you all shut up and go away?”

“Yes,” six voices say at once.

“Fine,” he mutters, but he finds that he’s not nearly as annoyed as he’s pretending to be as he’s met with genuine, expectant smiles. “I like having you all in my head.” 

He ignores the victorious cheers that erupt and kicks the car door open, moving to the trunk to gather the bags, and by the time he walks through the loft door everyone is gone again. He catches sight of Magnus sitting on the couch with the Chairman in his lap as he heads to the kitchen to set the bags down, and he smiles at the simplicity of it, at how domestic it feels. 

Just as he starts putting everything away, arms wrap around his waist and a chin settles on his shoulder. 

“So, just you and me tonight, hm?” Magnus says, and Alec leans back into him, sighing as his warmth seeps into his back.

“Just you and me,” he agrees, and even so, eight sets of lips curl up in a grin across the state of New York. 


End file.
